Mapping Minorities and their Media: The National Context –
Finland
Ralf Kauranen & Salla Tuori
Deparment of Sociology
Åbo Akademi University
1. Introduction
The aim of this country report is to offer a descriptive account of the diasporic
minorities and their media in contemporary Finland. The problems associated
with presenting such a description are discussed in the general introduction of
the project Diasporic Minorities and their Media in the EU – A Mapping
(Georgiou 2001). Therefore, this report does not discuss the theoretical
framework or associated concepts, unless this is necessary to enable an
understanding of the specific Finnish case. Mapping diasporic minorities, and
their media, is about writing similarities and differences. This introductory
section is creating similarity between a Finnish majority culture and certain
minorities in Finland as it is shortly presenting some minorities and ruling
them out of the focus of the report. This is the case with the Swedishspeaking minority and the Sami people. This introduction also shortly presents
the other so-called old minorities of Finland, the Jews, the Romany, the Tatars
and the so-called “Old Russians”. These three are the old migrant minorities,
which acquire a special status also in Finnish legislation, as compared with
newer migrant minorities. We have included the media of the Romany and the
Tatars in this mapping. The Jews are such an integrated minority that we
have not included their media. In the case of Russian media we have looked
at the contemporary situation, which obviously excludes the media of the “old”
Russians in the pre-WWII period.
As Finland is traditionally understood to be a homogeneous society this
introduction also points to possible readings of Finland as a “multicultural”
society. This is in line with the analysis of Finnish nationalism, according to
which the discourse of a homogeneous Finnish people and country is the
result of a nation building process and identity construction with a strong
presence since the 19th century (cf. Alapuro 1988). Whereas Finland, as no
other country can be described as homogeneous without often rude
generalizations, the idea of cultural homogeneity has an influence on how
diversity is treated, for example in the case of the inclusion of new minorities
in society (cf. Lepola 2000, 21).
Finland has been characterized as a meeting point between the cultural
spheres of east and west in Europe (e.g. Pentikäinen 1995). The geographical
position of Finland between Sweden and Russia has undoubtedly had an
impact on the way the minority situation in Finland and migration from and to
Finland is to be characterized. In comparison to many other EU countries
Finland gained independence relatively recently: the declaration of
independence was made on December 6, 1917. Before that Finland
constituted the eastern part of the Swedish kingdom until the war between
1
Sweden and Russia in 1808-09, when Finland became part of the Russian
Empire.
The majority of the population of Finland is Finnish speaking. The largest
linguistic minority is the Swedish-speaking, which constitutes 5,63 % of
Finland’s population (of a total of 5.181.115 by December 31, 2000) in the
year 2000 (Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2001, 112, 114). The number is
based on individuals’ own registration of “Mother tongue” in the central
register of the Population Register Center. Although the Swedish-speaking
Finns are a numerical minority, the Swedish language in Finland is granted
the same position as the Finnish in legislation, and in that sense it is
misleading to present the Finland-Swedes as a minority. The Constitution Act
of 1919, as well as the new Constitution of 1999, defines Finnish and Swedish
as the two national languages of Finland. The Constitution, along with the
Language Act of 1922, furthermore confirms to Finnish citizens a right to use
either Finnish or Swedish in their contacts with government and the judicial
system, as well as equal provision for “cultural and economic needs” of both
language groups. The main policy level of authorities’ usage of Finnish and
Swedish is the municipality. Based on individuals’ registration of mother
tongue a municipality is either monolingual (Finnish or Swedish) or bilingual
with either a Finnish or Swedish linguistic minority. (On the Swedish-speaking
in Finland, see Liebkind & al. 1995; McRae 1997.) The Swedish-speaking
minority, and their media, are out of the scope of this report, both because of
the legal status of the minority group in Finland, as well as based on the many
non-distinctive features of the minority compared to the Finnish-speaking
majority. The criteria of diaspora listed by Cohen (1997, cited in Georgiou
2001, 12) do, despite some aspects of the cultural identity and everyday life of
Swedish-speaking in Finland, mainly not fit this particular minority, especially
with regard to the references to an “original homeland” outside the country of
residence.
The media of Swedish-speaking in Finland are also extensive with regard to
the size of the population. There are nine Swedish newspapers published 4-7
days a week and six papers published 1-3 times a week (Moring 2000, 214).
The Finnish public service broadcaster, YLE, has two radio channels in
Swedish, Radio Extrem and Radio Vega, and YLE’s two television networks
send Swedish programs daily, approximately 1000 hours a year. Since fall
2001 the program amount has increased due to the launch of YLE’s Swedish
digital television network, FST-kanalen, which aim is to double the hours of
Swedish programming.
Another minority of Finland not fitting the criterias of diaspora presented in the
project’s general framework is the Sami people, an indigenous minority. The
Constitution of 1999 grants the Sami the status of an indigenous people. The
Act on Sami Parliament of 1995 gives the Sami cultural self-government.
There are various estimates of the Sami population in Finland. According to
one, the registration of mother tongue, the minority makes up 0,03 % of the
country’s population (Statistical Yearbook of Finland 2001, 114). The Sami
population in Finland is also estimated to be about 6.500 (Nousuniemi 1999,
53), ??? % of the whole population. Most Samis live in the northernmost
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municipalities of Finland that may be considered part of the Sami “homeland”
also covering northern areas of Norway, Sweden and northwest Russia. In
these countries there are over 60.000 Sami altogether with the largest
population in Norway. The media landscape of the Sami in Finland is not as
extensive as the Swedish minority’s, but similarly as the Sami homeland, it is
transnational. Among Sami media, radio is the most important, as both
television production and print media have been marginal. As Nousuniemi
notes about radio’s importance for the position of Sami: “The [Sami] language
has had official status on the Radio for much longer than in the society”
(Nousuniemi 1999, 60). The public broadcasting companies in Finland,
Norway and Sweden produce Sami language programs partly broadcasted in
all countries.
Historically Finland has been a country of emigration, not immigration. It has
been estimated that about 1 million Finns have left the country, some to
return. During 1860-1930 and from the 1950’s to the beginning of the 1970’s
the emigration was especially large. In the first period the destination was
mainly North America and in the latter Sweden was the most common
destination (Korkiasaari 1989). Although emigration has dominated Finnish
migration patterns, there has been some migration to Finland as well. The
greatest part of this is, until the 1980’s made of Finnish returnees, but there
are also some much older "migrant minorities". These are the Roma, the
Jews, the Tatars and the so-called Old Russians.
The first Roma immigrated in the 16th century. The number of Roma living in
Finland is today estimated to be about 10.000, with an additional ca. 3.000
Finnish Roma living in Sweden (Hernesniemi & Hannikainen 2000). A couple
of hundred Roma have arrived in Finland in the past years from former
Yugoslavia and Romania. Also a few Slovakian Roma have applied for
refugee status, but the applications have for nearly all been decided
negatively upon (ibid.). The Finnish Constitution grants the Roma “the right to
maintain and develop their own language and culture”. Also, the Act on the
Finnish Broadcasting Company recognises the special need to produce
services in the Romany language.
The Roma have traditionally been, and in some respects still continues to be
treated with prejudice in Finland. The Romany are a segregated group, with
often strong commitment to their own traditions and cultural values, which has
been considered a problem rather than a strength. In this sense the Romany,
that only marginally are a linguistic minority in Finland, are comparable to the
new migrant minorities. Hence, the Romany media, unlike the Sami and
Finland-Swedish, are included in this mapping.
As measures to enhance the inclusion of the Roma in Finnish society there is
subordinate to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health the Advisory Board on
Romany Affairs with members representing the government and Romany
associations. The tasks of the Board are, for example, to follow the situation
of the Roma in Finland with regard to inclusion in society and living conditions
and to report to authorities on the developments. Moreover, the Board is to
make initiatives to improve the situation of the Roma in educational,
3
employment and economic issues, to work against racism and to promote the
Romany language and culture.
One of the Board’s initiatives resulted in 1994 in the establishing of the
Education Unit for the Romany Population, under the National Board of
Education. The unit is “assigned to develop and implement nation-wide
training and education for the Romany population, to promote the Romany
language and culture, to engage in information and publicity activity on
Romany culture and education, and to carry out the increasing number of
international tasks which have arisen as a result of Finland’s EU membership”
(http://www.oph.fi/info/Romanyt/). Neither the Advisory Board on Romany
Affairs nor the Education Unit for the Romany Population has an explicit policy
concerned with media, but the latter has a role as publisher of the journal
Latšo Diives. A recent report on Romany affairs in Finland commissioned by
the ministry of Social Affairs and Health (Suonoja & Lindberg 2000) in its
recommended strategies also neglects the role of media or media policies.
First, as a part of Sweden and later during the autonomy under Russia,
Finnish laws were those of the Swedish kingdom. These forbid Jews to settle
in the country, with the exception of some cities on Swedish territory. The
Turku peace treaty of 1743 gave Jews the possibility to settle in the southeastern Finnish territory and this is where the first permanent Jews in Finland
lived. When Finland became a Russian Grand Duchy Swedish law came into
force in the south-eastern area as in the whole country. During this period, the
only Jews allowed to settle in Finland were those who had been employed in
the Russian army, and this was the usual way of immigration. In the beginning
of the 1870’s the number of Jews in Finland was ca. 500. The senate’s policy
on residence permits was strict and the increase in the number of Jews was
very limited. In 1918, Finnish Jews were given the right to become Finnish
citizens. Between the world wars the Jewish community in Finland had ca.
2000 members (Harviainen 1999). Today there are ca. 1300 Jews in Finland
(Forsander & Ekholm 2001).
There are two Jewish congregations in Finland, in Helsinki and Turku. The
Jews in Finland may be regarded a religious and cultural minority, whereas
ethnically and linguistically Jews are a heterogeneous group. The educational
level of the Finnish Jews is high and the group is very strongly assimilated in
Finnish majority culture. Consequently, the media of Finnish Jews, for
example, the Finnish language newsletter of the Helsinki congregation,
HaKehila, are not to be regarded as in the scope of this report.
The Russian army’s presence in Finland was the reason also to the arrival of
the first groups of Muslims in the country. The Muslim soldiers were mostly
Kazan Tatars or Bashkirs, whereas the first stabile community, however, was
the result of the arrival of Mishär Tatar merchants in late 19th century. Before
the Russian revolution most salesmen had their families in the regions of
departure, but in the beginning of the 1920’s families and other refugees
came to Finland (Halén 1999; Leitzinger 1999). When the first Islamic
congregation was founded in 1925 it had 528 members, in 1935 the members
were 669 and in 1978 the membership of the Helsinki and Tampere
congregations was 938 (Halén 1979, 5). The Tatars are a well-established
4
religious, cultural and linguistic Turkic minority. It is significant that the small
group has managed to preserve the knowledge of the Tatar language for even
five generations. The publication activity of the Tatars has been extensive.
Publications include religious texts, poetry, plays, novels etc. as well as a few
periodicals, the earliest from 1925 (ibid.).
Beside Romany, Jews and Tatars, Russians are the fourth old migrant
minority of Finland. The first group of Russians came to so-called Old Finland,
the Russian Government of Wyborg, areas that were acquired by Russia from
Sweden in 1721 and 1743. Noblemen, who had been offered land there,
brought groups of serfs to the area. Russian migration to the area increased
during the 18th century. For example, in the most important town in Karelia,
Viipuri (nowadays on Russian territory), 30 % of the inhabitants were Russian
in 1812 (Kuujo 1993, 22, cited in Nylund-Oja et al. 1995). During the
autonomy the share of Russians decreased in Old Finland. In the rest of
Finland the amount of Russian merchants increased until the mid-19th
century. In Helsinki, for example, the share of Russians among merchants
was 40 % by 1850 (Lampinen 1984). Around 1900 the share of permanently
residing Russians of the Finnish population was 0,2 %, the number being
7400 in 1910. There were also a significant number of temporary Russian
residents, who were military personnel, civil servants or of the Orthodox clergy
(Nylund-Oja et al. 1995, 186).
Generally, during the 20th century migration to Finland has been minimal. Until
1981 emigration from Finland surpassed the immigration to the country. Still,
however, the numerical turn in 1981 is explained by the amount of returning
Finnish emigrants. Not before 1990 was the migration of non-Finnish citizens
to Finland larger than the number of returning Finnish citizens
(http://www.utu.fi/erill/instmigr/eng/e_12.htm).
2. The most important migrant – diasporic groups in
Finland
The old minorities and migration in the pre-WWII period were discussed in the
introduction chapter. In this chapter the focus is on "new migration", and
particularly on the period from the 1980s until now. There was a shift in
politics, legislation and particularly in both number and type of immigration
from the mid-1980s onwards.
However, in order to understand the Finnish context, it is important to shortly
discuss the migration history of the country. The Finnish history of immigration
shows that in the beginning of the independence (1917) there were significant
immigrant populations in Finland. Finland received large numbers of refugees
from the Soviet Union. Finland was, however, mainly a transit country. Due to
the territorial losses in WWII 450 000 Finns had to be resettled in other parts
of Finland. After the WWII the immigrant population started to decrease in
Finland. During the period between 1945 and 1970 Finland was mainly a
country of emigration (e.g. Korkiasaari & Söderling 1998). Until the 1980s
5
migration was largely about Finns moving to Sweden and coming back.
During the whole post-WWII period over 500 000 Finns (more than 10% of the
population) have moved to Sweden. Migration was strongest between 1958
and 1970. Emigration to Sweden was mainly about finding work and better
living in the wealthier neighbouring country. In the post 1945-period other
destinations for Finnish immigrants have been mainly other European
countries. Since 1981, remigration from Sweden has exceeded emigration,
and in total immigration is today bigger than emigration. Until the end of
1980s, 85% of all immigrants were returning immigrants from Sweden
(Korkiasaari & Söderling 1998: 14).
Finland differs from most other Western European countries in that there has
been no labour immigration. Instead, Finland was previously a country of
labour emigration. The immigration policies have been very restrictive during
the whole post-WWII period. This can be seen in the minimal numbers of
immigrants in Finland. In 1980 people with other than Finnish citizenship
formed 0,2% (12 800 persons) of the population in Finland. Most non-Finnish
citizens were from Europe. In 1990 the number had increased to 0,4% (26
300 persons). By the year 2000 foreign citizens reached 1,7% (91 000
persons) of the population (Statistics Finland). During the ten years period
from 1990 to 2000, around 20 000 foreign citizens got Finnish citizenship.
The first refugees in the post WWII period arrived to Finland in 1973 from
Chile, and altogether Finland received 182 Chileans between 1973 and 1977.
Most of the people in this group have since moved to another country or
returned to their home country (Korkiasaari 1998, 16). At least half of the
Chileans arrived to Finland by accident. The amount of refugees has been
and continues to be very low. It was first during the 1990s that the amount of
refugees increased to over 1000 per year. Altogether Finland has received
around 20 000 refugees. Most have arrived as quota refugees from Vietnam,
Iran, Iraq and the former Yugoslavia or as asylum seekers from Somalia
(Valtonen 1999, 14). At the moment the largest groups of immigrants in
Finland are Russians, EU-nationals, Estonians, and Somalis. Other larger
groups are Vietnamese, Kurds, Iraqis and people from ex-Yugoslavia.
There is no statistics in Finland on the basis of ethnicity, but there is on the
basis of mother tongue or nationality. On the basis of language groups there
is a possibility to get a more refined picture of the immigrant population than
merely looking at nationality as some immigrants have Finnish citizenship and
some groups, as the Kurds, do not come from only one state. On the basis of
language the most important groups in 2000 are (groups of more than 200
persons are included):
Altogether
99227 (Others than Finnish, Swedish or Sami)
Russian
Estonian
English
Somali
Arabic
28205
10176
6919
6454
4892
6
Vietnamese
3588
German
Albanian
Kurdish
Chinese
Turkish
Serbo-Croatian
3298
3293
3115
2907
2435
2166
Spanish
French
Thai
Persian
Polish
Hungarian
1946
1585
1458
, Farsi
1205
1157
1089
Dutch
Romanian
Tagalog
Japanese
Bengali
Bulgarian
650
604
568
561
524
486
Norwegian
Greek
Hindi
Danish
Pandzabi
Amharic
471
450
428
Urdu
Ukranian
Hebrew
Lingala
Chech
Tamil
309
337
263
256
240
231
397
346
312
(based on the information of Statistics Finland, Väestörakenne 2000)
On the basis of citizenship the most important groups in 2000 are (groups
with more than 200 persons are included):
Altogether
EU-countries
Africa
South-America
Russia
All
91 074
16 656
7600
1028
20552
7
Estonia
Sweden
Somalia
Iraq
10839
7887
4190
3102
Ex-Soviet Union
Ex-Yugoslavia
The UK
Germany
The United States
2447
Iran
Vietnam
Turkey
China
Bosnia-Herzegovina
1941
1840
1784
1668
Thailand
Yugoslavia
Ukraine
France
Italy
1306
1204
961
India
Hungary
Poland
The Netherlands
Canada
756
654
Norway
Denmark
Morocco
Spain
Philippines
585
580
537
533
527
Japan
Romania
The Democratic Republic
of Kongo
Afghanistan
Bangladesh
507
489
423
Switzerland
Greece
Bulgaria
Ethiopia
Kazakstan
355
Croatia
Israel
2371
2207
2201
2010
1627
859
774
649
623
600
386
384
312
297
295
295
260
259
8
Pakistan
Ghana
Sri Lanka
Nigeria
Latvia
Ireland
Austria
Algeria
Lithuania
Egypt
253
237
231
230
227
218
217
216
204
200
(Väestörakenne 2000, ???)
The Finnish statistics make it difficult to trace immigrants of second
generation, especially if they declare Finnish or Swedish as their mother
tongue. This should, however, not affect the statistics presented herein.
Racism, Multiculturalism, Integration
"Multiculturalism" has become part of the political rhetoric in the 1990s. It is
then often seen as a question of equality or equal opportunities (Lepola 2000,
203).
Immigration is, however, often seen as a burden and not as a resource in
Finland (Forsander 1999). The attitudes towards immigration also stress fear
and threat (Jaakkola 1999). Magdalena Jaakkola (1999) has studied attitudes
towards immigration among Finns during a period from 1987 to 1999. When
the first study was conducted it turned out that attitudes towards immigration
were rather positive, against some expectations. It is to be noticed that the
number of immigrants was very small, most of the immigrants were in fact
Finns that had remigrated from Sweden and North America, and there was an
economic boom in the society. Negative attitudes were strongest in 1993, at
the same time as the economic recession was at its worst. In the late 1990s
the attitudes grew more positive again, even if still more negative than in
1987.
Due to the Finnish policies on immigration the immigrant communities are
young and rather small. As chain migration has not been favoured, except in
the case of the Finnish Ingrians from the ex-Soviet Union and to some extent
among asylum seekers, the newcomers do not have links to the immigrants
that already live in Finland. In consequence, the networks and along them,
support from other migrants is not necessarily so well developed. Wellestablished communities provide support through networks and interaction,
which again make integration easier. According to a study conducted in
Canada and Finland, in countries such as Finland, where ethnic communities
are rather weak, there is more need to social measures and services from the
state (Forsander 1999).
9
The most acute problem for immigrants are the high unemployment rates. All
immigrant groups have higher unemployment rates than Finnish citizens. The
problem is worst among the Somalis, Iraqis, Iranians, Vietnamese, immigrants
from Bosnia-Herzegovina and Moroccans, who all suffer from unemployment
rates that are over 60%. The labour force participation rate for all foreigners
was 55% in 1997. As the unemployment rates, labour force participation
varies highly among the different groups. The labour force participation rates
are lowest among the groups that have the highest unemployment rates
(Ministry of Labour).
In the following part some of the migrant minority groups are discussed. At the
moment there are two migrant groups over others in the amount of attention
from both the media and the researchers: Russians and Somalis (on
Russians e.g.: Jasinskaja-Lahti 2000, Vikat 1996, Kyntäjä & Kulu 1998,
Haapanen 1997 and on Somalis e.g.: Alitolppa-Niitamo 2000 and 2001,
Hautaniemi 1997; Visapää ????). They are numerically the two largest groups
as well as media favourites, even if that position mostly means a great deal of
"problem journalism".
Finnish Ingrians, Russians and Estonians
Russians are the largest migrant community in Finland. They are not usually
considered as an "old minority" even if there always has been a Russian
population in Finland. During the 19th century there was a significant number
of Russians in Finland. They lived mainly in the bigger cities as Helsinki and
Viipuri (that now forms part of Russia) and worked as salesmen (Forsander ja
Ekholm 2001, 106) In the 1920s there was according to the Ministry of the
Interior 33 000 Russian citizens in Finland. Many of them had come after
1917 as refugees (Nygård ????, cited in Forsander). However, most of them
used Finland as transit country to go further to other countries. Between 1950
and 1980 the Russian immigration to Finland happened through marriage with
Finnish citizens. This was practically the only way to migrate to Finland. Most
of the people who illegally crossed the border from the Soviet Union and tried
to get residence in Finland were deported.
In the 1990s, the number of Russian-speaking people has increased
particularly because many Finnish Ingrians have moved to Finland from the
countries of the former Soviet Union. President Mauno Koivisto made a
statement in 1990 that everyone with "Finnish origin" is considered as a
"returning immigrant". That a person is considered as a returning immigrant,
s/he, one of her/his parents or two grandparents must have a notion of
Finnish nationality in the official documents. There is also a possibility to
prove Finnish origin or other special ties to Finland in some other way if
official documents are not available (Finnish Alien's Act 1991). In practice the
status of a returning immigrant means largely the same rights and services as
there is for refugees, and more importantly, release from some requirements
in order to gain the residence permit (for example, it is not necessary to have
proof of a "sufficient income" or to have a work permit).
10
In consequence of this decision there is an increased immigration from Russia
and other former Soviet Republics since the 1990s. Most of the immigrants
are descendants of Finns that moved in the 1600s and 1800s to the St
Petersburg area. During the WWII 63.000 Ingrians were moved to Finland. In
the Peace Treaty of 1944 there was a closure that all the Ingrians that were
moved from the Soviet Union must be moved back. In consequence 55.000
Ingrians were returned to the Soviet Union, many of which directly to Siberia.
As they suffered persecution during the Stalin era, many ceased to use
Finnish and did not want "Finnish" as their nationality in the passport (Kyntäjä
2001).
This decision to place people of "Finnish origin" in a special position has been
explained or approached in various ways. Some argue that it was in fact
about labour politics, as it still was estimated in 1990 that Finland would suffer
from lack of labour (Forsander ????). Politicians' rhetoric have stressed
"ethnic ties", the right to "come home" and Finland's debt to Ingrians as they
were deported after the WWII to Russia (Lepola 2000). There have been only
few arguments that this policy would be discriminatory towards people with no
“Finnish ties”. Most of the arguments against the decision have been about
that there has been people arriving to Finland as returning immigrants on
"false grounds". The decision has been lively discussed in the media and
among politicians. Now suggestions are again made among politicians on the
highest level that the special treatment of Finnish Ingrians should be ended
and they should be treated as any other migrants from non-EU countries. In
practise that would mean closing the border for the immigrants from Russia
and other ex-Soviet Union republics.
When the returning immigrants started to emigrate from the former Soviet
Union, it turned out to be a very heterogeneous group linguistically, historically
and geographically. Most of the immigrants have come from Carelia (close to
the Finnish border) and from Estonia, but also from Siberia and further Asia.
In the group there are also descendants of Finns who moved before the WWII
from Canada to the Soviet Union. Family members of returning immigrants
also form a significant part.
The Finnish rhetoric of "returning immigrant" suggests that Finland is the
imagined homeland. This idea of homecoming was used in official rhetoric
sometimes in a very emotional way (Lepola 2000: 102). This might be one
reason for the shock among Finnish politicians and media that was
experienced when it turned out that many of the immigrants from Russia did
not speak Finnish or otherwise were attached to "Finnish culture" or Finland.
According to Cohen’s (1997) categories Russians are a labour diaspora.
Most of the Russians in Finland somehow belong to the group of returning
immigrants, either by being one oneself or being wife, husband or child to
one. If one is not regarded as a returning immigrant, the entrance gates are
hard to open without having a proper job in advance, enough money, etc.
Many of the Finnish Ingrians live in Estonia, which explains the rather big
number of Estonian immigrants in Finland. Thus, most of the Estonian
immigrants in Finland form part of the group "returning immigrants". Estonian-
11
speaking immigrants are in a better position than Russian-speaking
immigrants are, as Estonian is very close to Finnish. Among the immigrants
from Estonia there are also Russian-speakers. Of both Russians and
Estonians, 60% are women. This is explained by the fact that more women
have moved to Finland through marriage with a Finnish man than men
through marriage with Finnish women. Before 1990 marriage with a Finnish
citizen was one of the few ways to migrate from the Soviet Union to Finland.
Somalis
Somalis were the first larger group of asylum seekers in Finland. In 1990,
1440 asylum seekers arrived to Finland from Somalia. It might be difficult to
understand the discourses on "dramatic increase" or "flow" of Somali
refugees, which this relatively small group of Somalis caused in the Finnish
press. By contrast, the year before altogether 170 asylum seekers arrived to
the country. Commonly it was not expected that any asylum seekers would
“find” the northern and peripheral country. Somalis were the first larger group
of refugees from Africa and of Muslim background. The internal heterogeneity
of the group is pointed out in all literature on Somalis. It is characteristic for
the Finnish public discourse to consider the group as homogeneous. The
Somali refugees have a background of Islam, but the complexity of Islam as
well as individual differences in practise and adherence are often overlooked
in the Finnish debate (Valtonen 1999). As Alitolppa-Niitamo & Ali (2001) note
Somalis are constructed as the ultimate other of the migrant groups. The
majority population has reflected all the fears and threats towards difference
or immigration on the group of Somalis.
The media attention that was (and still is) overwhelming considering the rather
small amount of Somalis, is partly due to the visibility of the difference. At
least as importantly, the economic depression started to hit Finland at the
same time as the first Somalis arrived. As the economic situation grew worse,
unemployment rates rose radically (from around 3% in 1990 to over 16% in
1993). In the situation of weakened economics, immigrants are in the most
vulnerable position. The Finnish programmes on integration stress labour
market participation as means or integration in the society at large. This has
not happened. There are great differences in the education among the
Somalis depending on from which part of the country and how they came to
Finland. Women in general are poorly educated. Employment rates for
Somalis are very low (Alitolppa-Niitamo ????). As Wahlbeck notes (1999, ??)
immigrants are marginalised to such an extent in the Finnish labour market
that they cannot experience the luxury of being discriminated against in
connection to employment. Many of the Somalis have started to study as the
possibilities in the labour market are so limited and a great number of women
are taking care of children at home (Alitolppa-Niitamo ????).
Somalis are typically a diasporic minority. Homeland is present as myth, and
most Somalis are helping out relatives who live in Somalia. Many have also
been active in Finnish developing projects in Somalia. According to the
diaspora typologies (REF), they could be characterised as a victim diaspora.
12
At the moment there are nearly 6500 persons with Somali as their mother
tongue. First it was mainly men who arrived from Somalia, but later the figures
have got more balanced. A rather big percentage of the Somalis are under 15
years old. Organisational activity among the Somalis has been extensive. In
1997 there were, for example, over 40 Somali associations in Finland. There
are, however, attempts to coordinate the different associations and an
umbrella organisation (Suomen Somaliliitto [Finnish Somali Union]) was
established in 1997 (Tiilikainen 1999: 72).
Smaller migrant minorities in Finland
Vietnamese were the first quota refugees that arrived in the beginning of the
1980s. There are at the moment about 3500 Vietnamese-speaking persons in
Finland (1840 Vietnamese citizens). The Vietnamese have arrived to Finland
either as quota refugees or through family unification. The Vietnamese came
to a country that was experiencing an economic boom, was still constructing
the welfare state, and where there were very few immigrants. Thus,
Vietnamese so-called boat refugees were rather well received. The number of
people was limited, a hundred per year or so (Quoc Cuong 2001).
The fact that there are no data available on the basis of ethnicity in the
Finnish statistics makes it difficult to make exact estimations on the number of
Kurds in Finland. However, there are more than 3000 Kurdish-speaking
persons in Finland. The Kurds in Finland are mainly from Iran, Iraq and
Turkey. Most of the Kurds arrived in the 1990s. Many Kurds from Iran and
Iraq came as quota refugees as a larger number of Kurds from Turkey came
as asylum seekers. Very few arrived in a pattern of chain migration. That is,
most of them did not have the intention of coming to Finland nor knew
anybody in the country before arriving. The groups of quota refugees and
asylum seekers differ from each other rather a lot. The quota refugees were
often selected on humanitarian grounds and therefore there are in the group
many families and children. By comparison nearly all (83%) of the asylum
seekers have been single young men (Wahlbeck 1999: 84-85).
The Finnish resettlement politics have favoured dispersal of the immigrants.
Therefore many of the Kurdish immigrants have been dispersed around the
country. However, the trend is that most of the Kurds, as other minorities,
have later moved to the Helsinki area or to other bigger cities (Wahlbeck
1999: 85). As most of Finland's new migrants, the Kurds arrived to Finland at
the same time as the economic recession. In result, the vast majority of Kurds
are unemployed and those who have work are self-employed.
Refugees from the ex-Yugoslavia in Finland are mainly Bosnians and
Kosovo-Albanians. Both Bosnians and Kosovo-Albanians have arrived as
quota refugees, through medical programs and family unification
programmes. The first Thai and Filipino immigrants arrived to Finland in the
1980s. Both of the groups consist mainly of women (over 80%), and the main
reason or means to immigrate has been marriage with Finnish men. Some of
the immigrants from Thailand and Philippines have also come to work as
13
housekeepers mainly in the diplomacies. There are over 1000 Thai people
living in Finland. The Filipino population in Finland is not too significant
numerically, a little bit over 500.
3. Policies on migration and ethnicity
Tomas Hammar (1990) describes different phases in the immigration process
as three entrance gates. The first gate refers to how to enter the country for a
short period, the second gate how to gain the residence permit and the third
gate is about regulating nationality. The groups that easily can pass the first
gate in Finland are people from other Nordic countries, EU-nationals,
refugees and people who have married with a Finnish citizen. For other
people this first gate is hard to open (Lepola 2000, 29). To gain a permanent
residence permit two years of continuous living in the country is demanded
and for citizenship five years of residence in Finland.
One feature in the Finnish migration politics that locate some immigrants in a
more favourable position is "Finnish roots". If a person has had Finnish
citizenship or at least one parent has had Finnish citizenship is the person
considered to have that "qualification". In these cases the processes are
faster and the person does, for example, not have to have proof of his/her
economic situation.
The policies on migration and ethnicity could also be roughly divided between
how entering the country is regulated and what happens after that. They could
also be divided in regulative measures and supportive measures. The
regulations on entering the country, visas, residence permits and work permits
are defined in the Finnish Aliens Act (1991). The supportive measures in the
legislation are defined in the Act on Integration of Immigrants and Reception
of Asylum Seekers (1999).
Overview on Finnish migration policies
During the post WWII period until the 1970s Finland was practically a closed
country. Only people with Finnish ancestors and their families (husbands,
wives and children) were allowed to immigrate to Finland. This was partly due
to the Finnish politics towards the Soviet Union. Until 1990 Finland had a Pact
of Co-operation and Friendship with the Soviet Union. During that time
refugees were seen as a part of foreign politics, related to the power politics of
the western and eastern block. As any tricky questions, it was something that
Finland would not interfere in. The amount of asylum seekers was nearly nonexistent at that time. It was however, not only because of the peripheral
location – many asylum seekers were turned away already at the border so
that they had no chance to even apply for asylum in Finland (Lepola 2000,
44).
After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989 Finland started to open the borders to
others than people of Finnish ancestors. However, Finnish policies on
14
refugees and asylum seekers continued to be restrictive. The aim was to keep
the number of refugees as low as possible. According to Scheinin (1997)
there was a shift in the Finnish legal culture in the mid-1980s so that also nonFinnish citizens are entitled to social rights. In Finland 'foreigners affairs' were
until the 1980s merely a question of regulation and an issue for the police
authorities. Only in the aliens act from 1983 the foreigners' legal security was
stressed. There was a change towards more openness in the Finnish
immigration policies since 1990. Important factors in Finnish immigration
policies were the membership in the European Council in 1989, the EEAagreement and the membership in the EU in 1995 (Similä 2000:2). Finland
ratified the European Human Rights Convention in 1990. Human Rights
issues started to play a bigger role in immigration policies.
More openness in Finnish immigration politics has been a result of the
ratification of international agreements and the joining of the EU, but the
policies are generally still restrictive. A number of restrictive measures can be
identified such as visa-requirements from "refugee-producing countries" or
notions of "safe countries of origin and transit" in which cases the decisions
can be made with a quick procedure (Wahlbeck 1999: 79-80). In 1995 Russia
and Estonia were redefined as "secure countries" and thus the number of
asylum seekers decreased as many of the immigrants had arrived through
Russia to Finland. An asylum seeker from a "secure country" could be turned
away already at the border without her/him even getting the chance of
seeking asylum. The process of getting a decision on asylum in Finland is
long, to the extent that it is against the asylum seekers’ legal security. In order
to solve the problem, Finland has modified the legislation instead of making
changes in the administrative machinery. […] The quick procedures have
weakened the asylum seekers' legal security. [KOLLA] As Wahlbeck
(1999:80) points out, we might be in a new situation now as other European
countries close their borders; Finland is doing the same without ever having
had them open.
Practically during the whole independence there has been free movement of
persons between the Nordic countries. One could also travel without passport
between Estonia and Finland until the WWII. In 1995, one could again travel
without a visa to Estonia and vice versa.
In 1997, the government developed a programme for immigration and refugee
policies. There had been no political definition of policy before this. The
government program defined Finnish policy as "controllable immigration". It
was pointed out that even if migration should not be restricted and it is
enriching, it must be controlled by the state (Lepola 2000: 112-114).
Immigration affairs are organised in a complex and dispersed way in Finland,
altogether seven different ministries are responsible for them. The Ministry for
Foreign Affairs deals with visas, residence and work permits, and co-ordinates
international co-operation. The Ministry of the Interior is together with the
Ministry of Labour in charge of immigration policies. They are divided so that
the Ministry of the Interior controls entrance to and departure from the
country, citizenship and EU affairs and the Ministry of Labour refugees,
15
immigration, asylum seekers, integration into working life and Finnish society
and work-permits.
Among the bodies that work with immigration affairs are the Directorate for
Immigration, Frontier Guard Service and the Police under Ministry of the
Interior, Office for the Minority Ombudsman, Employment offices, Reception
offices and Employment and Economic Development Centres under Ministry
of Labour. In addition, municipalities are in charge of integration of the
immigrants (see http://www.mol.fi/migration/pateng.html, administration of
migration affairs, for a more detailed view on how immigration affairs are
divided between the ministries and other bodies).
Relevant Legislation
The Act on Integration of Immigrants and Reception of Asylum Seekers came
into force in May 1999. According to the Act all immigrants have the right to a
personal integration plan made with the local authorities. "Integration" is
defined as following:
1) the personal development of immigrants, aimed at participation in work life
and the functioning of society while preserving their language and culture;
and
2) the measures taken and resources provided by the authorities to promote
such integration.
The Act also defines how reception of Immigrants should be organised and
what services are to be provided for the asylum seekers. The Finnish Aliens
Act defines the requirements for entering the country, acquirement of
residence permit, asylum and grounds for deportation from Finland. According
to Forsander (1999: 54) the Finnish Aliens Act is not more restrictive than the
legislation in other Nordic countries. Rather, it has been administrative
practices and a strict interpretation of the Act that has made Finnish
immigration policies so restrictive.
Neither the Aliens Act nor the administrative practices have favoured labour
migration. In consequence, the grounds on which residence permit is given
are: 1) "Finnish origin" or status of former Finnish citizen; 2) marriage or a
child with a permanent resident in Finland; 3) person who is granted asylum
and 4) family members of above mentioned categories. In 1990, a section
concerning immigrants of Finnish origin from ex-Soviet Union was added in
the Alien's Act. In the section about Russian and Estonian immigrants this
addition was discussed in more detail.
The Aliens Act that was developed in 1991 had by 1999 been modified
already ten times. On one hand the modifications dealt with making the legal
security for immigrants better, and on the other the law was restricted what
comes to quick procedures, visas and secure countries etc. Legislation in
Finland agrees with many principles of what could be called a "multicultural
16
society". The problem is that the practice does not follow the legislation (see
Lepola 1999, Liebkind 1999, ???).
4. Media policies
According to Ullamaija Kivikuru (1998), media policy in a broad perspective
may be viewed as defined on the following levels: international level, state
level, the level of professional cultures, the institutional level and the level of
the individual professional. The importance of the different levels is
interdependent, but here the focus is on the state level and more specifically
on legislation and government policies. The latter part consists in this case of
the government programme, action plans and a support mechanism directed
to minority cultures.
Historically, media policy has been, and in many ways continues to be a
question about freedom and rights vs. regulation and obligations. Still,
freedom of expression and freedom of press are the central basis of media
policy on the state level as represented by legislation and it must also be
considered a basis for a multicultural media landscape. In the Finnish
Constitution entering force 2000 it is stated that everybody has freedom of
expression. “Freedom of expression entails the right to express, disseminate
and receive information, opinions and other communications without prior
prevention by anyone” (The Constitution of Finland [731/1999]). Concerning
language and culture the Constitution states, besides what has been said
about Swedish and Sami, that “the Roma and other groups, have the right to
maintain and develop their own language and culture” (ibid.). These
definitions of rights of individuals and groups are the basis of the legal system
and government policies.
On a judicial level the constitutionally granted freedom of expression is
furthermore implemented both with regard to periodicals and radio and
television broadcasting. About the publication of periodicals is ruled in the Act
on Freedom of the Press. According to the 1919 Act only Finnish citizens
could act as publisher or editor-of-chief for a periodical. This changed as late
as in 1990 (Vuortama et al. 1990, 21).
According to the Act on Television and Radio Operations (1998/744) the
government should strive to, when granting the permission to this kind of
activity, the promotion of freedom of speech and the securing of the diversity
of program supply and the needs of special groups. The presence of
minorities in media is explicitly defined in the 1993 Act on Yleisradio OY (The
Finnish Broadcasting Company Ltd.) (1993/1380), the public service
broadcasting company (hereafter referred to as YLE). Concerning minorities
the aims of YLE’s public service duties are to:
1) “support democracy by providing a wide variety of information, opinions
and debates on social issues, also for minorities and special groups”;
“to treat in its broadcasting Finnish and Swedish speaking citizens on equal
grounds and to produce services in the Sami and Romany languages and in
17
sign language as well as, where applicable, also for other language groups in
the country”
(translation from YLE’s web-page: http://www.yle.fi/fbc/actyle.shtml). YLE’s
role as provider of programs in Swedish and Sami has been described in a
previous section. As of the cases of the Romany language and other
languages the provision in YLE’s programming is significantly less extensive.
The government programme of the contemporary government – Prime
Minister Paavo Lipponen’s second government – does not explicate policies
on specifically migrant minorities’ media. Media policies as well as policies on
minorities and ethnicity are however defined, one of the goals being
“tolerance among people will be engendered”. Concerning media the
overarching policy issue is the information society, which overlaps not only
media policy but also industrial, educational and cultural policies as well. This
is a trend that has dominated through the 1990’s as the main emphasis of
official media policy has been in the information society strategies (Kivikuru
1998, 233). The information society is to be “humane” and built to prevent the
“exclusion of citizens” and the services of the information society are to be
provided “to all on an equal basis”. In communications policy freedom of
speech and “pluralism and versatility in communications” are the guidelines of
the government. With regard to YLE this means “a wide range of high-quality
broadcastings based on the obligation to provide a public service in both
domestic languages”; a notably narrow definition of the public service task’s
linguistic dimensions, considering the formulation in the Act on Yleisradio Oy.
Reference to print media is made by stating that “[m]aintaining selective press
subsidies is a guarantee of a wide-ranging selection of Finnish newspapers
and periodicals”. The press subsidies are directed only to newspapers with
extensive news coverage and which are published at least three days a week.
For the moment, there are no such newspapers in Finland in other languages
than Finnish and Swedish. The government programme’s media policy is
conclusively not at all explicit on the issue of minorities’ media.
Instead, the government’s policies on immigration and ethnic relations have
been more important considering the media of immigrants. In March 2001 the
Government Action Plan to Combat Ethnic Discrimination and Racism
“Towards Ethnic Equality and Diversity” was adopted (see Ministry of Labour,
http://www.mol.fi/migration/etnoraen.pdf). It is mostly concerned with the
public authorities, but defines “the role of the media” as an important aspect of
the proposed implementation of the programme. The media, however, mostly
is referring to majority media and their content vis-à-vis racism and prejudices.
There is however represented the view in the programme, that the existence
of immigrant communities and organisations is important. As part of this view
it is acknowledged that the organisations need support, e.g. for producing
publications. Thus, among the measures of the ministries is a clause stating:
“The Ministry of Education will develop the support system for immigrant and
ethnic minority organisations, culture and publication activities and the
coverage of this system.” In economic terms this effort means an annual sum
of FIM 2.500.000 (about € 420.000). Otherwise the action plan does not
develop any further the measures to be taken with regard to minorities’ own
media. The focus is generally on majority culture media. According to the
18
action plan these should also give representatives of minorities access to the
production process. The suggestions in this respect are the recruitment of
journalists with an ethnic minority background, using ethnic minority
representatives as outside assistance or writers and as potential interviewees.
Also special pages and columns dedicated to immigration and minority issues
and local newspapers preparing space for writers representing the minorities
are among the suggestions. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of
Labour are to investigate “the possibilities and suitable ways of supporting
financially establishing traineeship and apprenticeship training for reporters
and reporter trainees who belong to ethnic minorities”. The Finnish
Broadcasting Company is to be involved in negotiations with the Ministry of
Transport and Communications, the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of
Education “with the objective of developing and launching programmes in
national and regional channels aimed at immigrants and ethnic minorities.
They would also develop news and current affairs programmes dealing with
ethnic relations targeted at Finns, and generally take into account the plurality
of the society in programme supply”.
To conclude, on the level of government, the policies concerning minorities
and media are threefold. The policies are concerned with, firstly, the issue of
racism and prejudices in media representations. Secondly, there is an
awareness of the need of the inclusion of minority representatives in the
mainstream media production processes. Thirdly, there is the issue of giving
support to minority groups to build their own organizations and to produce
their own publications. Not diminishing the importance of the questions related
to the first policy issue and keeping in mind the relations between the three
issues, the latter two are of greater interest in the perspective of this report.
How the inclusion of minority representatives in mainstream media production
has worked out on a practical level will be touched upon in the section on the
media of diasporic minorities, and more specifically in the section ‘Majority
media’. Concerning Finnish audio-visual media this issue has in some length
also been covered by the More Colour in the Media study by the European
Institute for the Media (see Ouaj 1999). The third government policy issue,
about support to minority groups to enable an independent media production,
will be further looked upon here.
Among government policies concerning minority media the single most
important positive measure resulting in minorities’ own media has been the
Ministry of Education’s support to minority cultures and work against racism.
This support mechanism was referred to in the government Action Plan to
Combat Ethnic Discrimination and Racism, but there have been posts in the
state budget for support to minority cultures earlier as well.
In the state budget of 1996 FIM 2.000.000 (€ 340.000) was reserved for this
purpose. Since 1997 the sum has been 2,5 million Finnish marks. Of these,
FIM 1 million (€ 170.000) has yearly been directed to the Sami; this money is
distributed by the Sami Parliament. The Ministry of Education has distributed
the rest for the purposes of either support of minority cultures or work against
racism. The support is distributed on basis of applications. In 1999, 60
applicants of 185 received funding. The amount of projects that have received
19
funding have been about the same in the following years. The sums given to
different projects in 1999-2001 vary between 3.000 and 95.000 Finnish marks
(€ 500-16.000). Based on the lists of receivers of funding it is hard to say how
many of the 61 supported projects in 2001 had applied for and got support for
publication activity. On the list published on the Ministry of Education’s
Internet-pages
(http://www.minedu.fi/opm/avustukset/myonnetyt2001/vahemmistokulttuuri.ht
ml), only in seven of the project descriptions is explicitly mentioned a
publication or media activity, but many organisations have received funding
for “activity”, which also may include the production of, for example, a
newsletter. Anyhow, the Ministry of Education’s motivations for granting
support are clear in mentioning both cultural and publication activity as main
objectives. In 2002 the state budget reserves € 252.000 for the aim.
The Ministry of Education’s support to minority cultures is without doubt the
main channel for minority organisations or publications to receive public
funding. Many municipalities also support local organisations, but the amounts
of money are small and it has been beyond the scope of this report to attempt
to find out how the municipal support mechanisms would have benefited
minorities’ own media activity.
5. The media of diasporic minorities
With regard to diasporic minorities’ media in Finland the distinction between
audio-visual and print media is of great significance. The minorities of Finland
being so small in number it is not surprising that there are not any own
television or radio stations, with the important exception of the Russian
language Radio Sputnik. Therefore, print media is the dominating form of
minorities’ own media production. A mix- or multimedia forum between print
and traditional audio-visual media is the Internet, which offers also minority
representatives in Finland the means to produce their own – although
transnational, bearing in mind Internet’s character – www-pages with media
messages in text, visuals and sound.
Print media
Although the perspective here is on the current situation, be it mentioned that
there is a rich history of migrant minorities’ publications in Finland. The list of
especially Russian periodicals but also Tatar publications is long. The height
of publication activity was between the world wars. According to the
bibliography compiled by Harry Halén (1996) at least thirteen different
periodicals have been published among the Tatar community. The first was
Mäʿrifät published in 1925. The papers have been short-lived and occasional
in publication, Šimāl ocqonlarï, for example, appeared in eight issues in 194577. The scope of the periodicals is broad, the issues covered have been
everything from religious questions to the news of a sports association (Halén
1979; 1996). Contrary to the Russian periodicals, the Tatar publications are
well documented, although the print quantities were small and there is no
20
single library or institution that would have a collection of the Tatar
publications (Halén 1979, 6). In the case of Russian periodicals in Finland the
history seems to be very much undocumented. According to a newspaper
article there appeared about 40 Russian language periodicals in Finland in the
inter-war period (Helsingin Sanomat 5.5.1999). By the 1930’s, however, the
publication activity had ended, as most Russian immigrants left the country.
Concerning print media the situation is very lively and productive, although
generally the periodicals produced are short-lived and small in circulation.
Most of the periodicals listed in this report are photocopied and lack ISSN
number. The publishers are usually organizations or individuals, not
commercial publishers. The production of periodicals is mostly dependent on
the activity of single individuals. There are, however, some attempts to
produce periodicals on a professional and commercial basis. As is
understandable, based on the size of the minority communities, the Russian
periodicals of today are the ones that have the chance of existing as
professional projects.
There are today five periodicals in Russian published in Finland: Novye
Rubezh, Pietarin kauppatie, Rajalehti - Po obe storony, Spektr and Stop in
Finland. Another recent attempt was Kurjer Suomi, which only lasted for a
year in 1999. Novye Rubezh – New Horizons (published by Ostromedia Oy),
earlier called Rubezh, is a glossy magazine, which aim is to reach an
audience not only in Finland but in Scandinavia, Russia and the Baltic states
as well. Spektr (published by Spektr Kustannus Oy) is a tabloid newspaper
published ten times a year and a circulation of 20 000. Spektr’s readership is
Russian, as well as e.g. Polish and Serbo-Croatian in Finland. The paper
contains news and information about social matters in Finland. An important
part of the paper is also the event calendar and “notice-board” on Russian ongoings in Finland. This specific part of the paper has also received economic
support from the Ministry of Education. Stop in Finland and Pietarin kauppatie
are monthly magazines aimed at audiences in Russia, as well as to Finnish
advertisers. Their meaning for the Russian communities in Finland is probably
not important.
As the Russian community is of its own kind with regard to the size of the
periodicals published other minorities are more similar to each other in vis-àvis their publications. There are (at least) three Somali periodicals: Golis,
Midnimo and Koor. The first one, published quarterly since 1993, is published
by the organisation Suomen Somaliland Seura ry (Finnish Somaliland
Association) with a membership of 800. According to the paper itself it
“reaches about 100 families, local officials, researchers, and Finnish citizens
and migrant associations.” The languages are Somali and English. Midnimo is
the publication of Suomen Somaliliitto (Finnish Somali Association), published
since 1999. The language is mostly Somali, but also some Finnish. The
circulation of 400 is among the Somali communities, authorities and NGOs.
Koor is since 1995 the publication of the friendship society Suomi-Somalia –
seura ry., founded in 1986. Koor has a prehistory, 1987-1994, when the paper
was called Somalia tiedotuslehti (Somalia newsletter). The material in Koor is
21
to a varying degree in Somali, Finnish and English. In 1996-1998 also a
publication called Soof was published.
A similar case to the Somali/Finnish Koor is the publication Behar. This is the
periodical of the Finsko-bosansko-hercegovačko društvo (The Finnish-BosniaHercegovinian Association). Contrary to most friendship associations’
periodicals, which generally are in Finnish – only reflecting the membership of
the traditional friendship associations – Behar is almost exclusively in
Bosnian. Whether the publication still exists is unclear to us, the last issue we
have seen is no. 16 published in 2000.
An interesting publishing effort in the first part of the 1990’s was the periodical
Scandi-B, which was preceded by Finn-African, a one-issue magazine
published in 1992. Scandi-B started in 1993 and lasted to 1995. The
publication of another journal, Scandi-African, was announced in the first
issue, but this never happened and the second issue of Scandi-B states on
the cover: “Incorporating Scandi-African”. The paper was glossy and stated in
the first letter from the editor that the aim was to become a “publication for the
whole of Scandinavia”. The issues covered were of a broad range but news
from Africa, articles on the situation of immigrants especially in Finland and
articles on culture and entertainment were recurrent. In the three years of
publication (six issues) the magazine managed to reach a readership also
outside the migrant communities.
[The Drum]
There are three Romany periodicals in Finland, however none in the Romany
language: Elämä ja valo (Life and light), Latšo Diives and Romano Boodos
(Romany message). The language of the periodicals is almost exclusively
Finnish, with the occasional poem or prayer in Romany. Elämä ja valo is
published quarterly by Suomen Vapaa Romanilähetys ry. (Finnish Free
Romany Mission) since 1965. Romano Boodos (founded 1971, five issues a
year) is published by Romano Missio (est. 1906), according to the
organization’s own description on their homepage “a national child welfare
and social service organization” which “also produces Christian and
educational services for the Romany (Gipsy) people”
(http://www.romanomissio.fi/engl_ind.htm). Latšo Diives (est. 1994) is a
periodical of the National Board of Education. The first two publications have
a significant amount of religious content, and the third is to a large extent
about educational matters, but all three are covering the Romany community
in Finland and Romany issues in other countries as well.
Following track of most of the periodicals published by and for the different
diasporic communities in Finland is not an easy matter. Knowing which
publications still exist would demand contacting many activists in the
communities, a task, which has not been possible to realise in this project.
Remembrance of earlier periodicals is not always there. Small periodicals
have however appeared in at least Albanian, Bosnian, Kurdish, Turkish and
Vietnamese (see list for details). Probably the list is both incomplete and not
up-to-date. We have also included some periodicals that definitively do not
exist anymore.
22
Radio and TV
In the field of other than print media, one important channel is the Russian
language Radio Sputnik that can be heard in the south-eastern Finland and
the Helsinki area. It is the only commercial entirely non-Finnish language
radio channel in Finland. Until recently Radio Sputnik had emissions also in
Internet but due to raised costs they have stopped. Radio Sputnik serves
Russian speaking immigrants as well as Russian tourists. The station was
launched in 1999. It broadcasts 24 hours a day, and had five full time
employees and about ten trainees in 2000 (Ermutlu et al. 2000, 20).
The community radios, Radio Robin Hood in Turku, Lähiradio in Helsinki and
Radio Moreeni in Tampere have the most extended broadcasting in various
languages made by and for different ethnic communities. The idea behind the
community radios is to "let grassroots’ voices" be heard. Associations and
individuals are provided with the possibility to do programmes in the
community radios. They are a sort of an in-between form of diasporic
minorities' "own" media and “mainstream” media. To include ethnic minorities
in the production is part of the community radio ideology.
Radio Robin Hood was founded in 1990. News programmes in different
languages started in 1992 and were produced by the International Meeting
Point in Turku. In 1994, a project called "Keppi" (The stick) was started
together with the Ministry for Education. The aim of the project was to produce
children's programmes in different languages. Radio Robin Hood has had
various projects of training of journalists, financed by the Ministry of
Education.
Radio Robin Hood in Turku has at the moment programs in French, Albanian,
Russian, English, German, Arabic and Vietnamese. The variety of
programmes and languages is dependent on interested journalists,
associations or private persons and therefore the situation changes rather
frequently. There have been programmes in 17 languages. At the moment
there is one person working full-time as a coordinator for the programmes in
different languages. He is a professional journalist from Rwanda. The
programmes cover following areas: news from both "new" and "old"
homeland, interviews, cultural and religious issues, Finnish society and
culture, Finnish legislation, integration, education and work, local information
to mention some.
Lähiradio in Helsinki was founded in 1988. As Radio Robin Hood, Lähiradio
started with programmes in different languages in the early 1990s. They send
regularly programmes in Arabic, Somali, Russian, Kurdish, Tamil, Estonian,
German, French and English. In Arabic there is the program Ibn-Fadlan –
Suomen Arabiradio (Finnish Arabic Radio) that started emissions in 1996.
Main focus in the programmes is to give information to Arabs living in Finland
on Finland, politics, people, culture etc. Ibn-Fadlan Arabic Cultural Association
produces the programs. Warsan – Suomen Somaliradio (Finnish Somali
23
radio) is a one-hour program sent twice a week. Other programmes include
Radio Etiopia, Radio Valeriana, Inkeriradio (Ingrian Radio).
In the area of Tampere, Radio Moreeni, a campus radio in connection with the
University of Tampere, is the channel for migrant media production. There are
programmes in Spanish (by students), English (aimed largely for immigrants),
French, Farsi, Kurdish, Pushdu, Russian and Estonian. The programmes in
different languages started in the early 1990s. The radio has set some
guidelines for the programs. The programs should promote integration by
dealing with cultural issues. Religious or political issues have to be treated
with care. The programs often deal with everyday life in Finland and Tampere,
informing and promoting different events. Children's programmes are also
produced. As in all the community radios, the range of programmes and
languages vary quite a lot from time to time. Radio Moreeni, Lähiradio
(Helsinki) and Radio Robin Hood (Turku) also cooperate so that the
programmes for example achieve larger audiences. For instance programmes
in Somali made in Turku have been broadcasted also in Tampere.
There are some spaces in the "mainstream" media production that are worth
mentioning even if the inclusion of minority perspectives in mainstream media
is poorly developed. There are hardly any spaces in Finland for "ethnic"
minority TV-production. In fact, the only one at the moment is the Finnish
Broadcasting Company’s programme Basaari that has come out since 1996.
Immigrants, or "new Finns", are working as journalists and the production
team consist of both Finns and immigrants. Basaari has also organised
training in journalism for immigrants where internships have been included.
Main focus of Basaari has been to do programs on immigrants in Finland by
themselves. The language of the program is Finnish. The audience is both
Finns and immigrants. Unfortunately Basaari comes out at 5pm, which
somewhat marginalizes the program. Another space for "immigrant
journalists" in the mainstream media is a weekly "immigrant page" in
Aamulehti, the main local newspaper in Tampere.
Conclusions
The list offered by this mapping must be seen as only indicative as the
mapping has appeared to be much more time and resource consuming than
was expected in the beginning. This is partly due to the lack of an institution in
Finland that would have carried out the work of actively and systematically
collecting or mapping minority media. No library, for example, has made the
effort to gather this kind of material. Finding out about minorities’ media,
especially in the case of print media, would need to be based on a broad
survey among the immigrant communities and their organisations and
activists to be reliable. It would be of utmost importance for some institution,
e.g. the national library, to actively, gather material of this kind. The risk of
minorities’ publications from the beginning of the 1990’s and earlier
disappearing from collective memory is otherwise overwhelming.
24
As a result of this mapping, it can be stated that there is a rich publication
activity among the minority communities in Finland. The situation is however
problematic when it comes to continuity in the field. The main problems are of
the following kind. Firstly, the immigrant communities in Finland are small, due
to the restrictive immigration policies. Publication activity is therefore reliant on
few individuals’ voluntary activity and resources. The size and the
organisational diversity of the immigrant communities also mean that there
are not sufficient audiences to guarantee publishing on a commercial basis,
with the possible exception of the Russian-speaking population. Secondly, the
public economic support mechanisms to minority publishing are not sufficient
to enable a continuous activity. The Ministry of Education’s support to minority
cultures is crucial in the case of the launching of many periodicals, but it is
doubtful if the measures can uphold an ongoing publishing activity. To
develop further the co-operation between minority media and the authorities,
for instance with regard to producing information material that the authorities
want to spread among the minority communities, could be a possible way of
enhancing the livelihood of the media. As is pointed out by Eilina Gusatinsky
(2000, 76-77), the editor in chief of Spektr, immigrants get much information
from e.g. ministries when they arrive to a country, but this information possibly
is lost since immigrants have so much else to acquaint themselves with when
coming to a new country. A periodical, for instance, could perhaps be a more
efficient channel also for authorities to share their information. To begin with,
however, a study to detect the minority communities’ perceived needs
concerning publication activity and public support should be carried out.
Despite of lacking resources diasporic minorities’ media exist. They are
channels of information about Finland to the, often recently established,
minority community in many important issues: on employment matters,
educational opportunities, social welfare and the legal system. Secondly, the
media also offer information on the homelands of the minorities, news that
possibly is not covered by the majority media. This aspect is probably of
smaller importance today than it used to be in the early 1990s. The existence
and spreading use of Internet and satellite television are offering recently
acquired channels to this kind of news coverage. Thirdly, the media offer its
audiences an insight in the on-goings in the own community. The material
with this kind of function is obviously “notice-boards” and event calendars, but
also portraits of community representatives, e.g. “success stories”, or articles
on problems faced by members in Finnish society. In most cases minorities’
media in Finland are invisible to Finnish society by large. The periodicals are
not available at libraries with a few exceptions, not to mention newsstands
and bookstores. In contrast to this some minority media have the aim of
showing “Finns” what a certain community is like, for example by means of
bilingual periodicals.
There are very limited possibilities for ethnic minorities to partake in the
majority, or “mainstream”, media production. A change in this respect, to give
minority representatives access to majority media, would be of great
importance. Particularly the Finnish Broadcasting Company as a public
channel has a responsibility to provide services also to in number smaller
groups of people. The argument of service provision to minorities is, however,
25
not the only one. The inclusion of minority perspectives would also be
important with regard to the information provided to the linguistic majority
(majorities), as this would give a more correct picture of Finnish society and
its variations. One possibility, although not at all realised yet, for minorities in
TV production could be the increasing tendency towards channels buying
productions from private producers and free-lance teams. Digitalisation could
also offer a chance to a more diversified media landscape. This process,
however, has not yet proved to be as successful as optimistic strategies have
suggested.
Language skills are often used as an excuse that immigrants are not to a
greater extent working in the media. However, the demands for language
skills (in Finnish or Swedish) should be revised. A “perfect” Finnish or
Swedish as a requirement often places the minority representatives in an
impossible position. A reconsideration of in which situations perfect Finnish or
Swedish language skills are required should be done. All aspects of media
production are not dependent on specific language skills. Linguistic variations
in public arenas could also be more welcomed than has been the case to this
date.
The Finland-Swedish media production is well guaranteed and established. It
could be used as an example for how to organise other minority media
production as well, not only in questions of service or programme supply, but
also, for instance, in relation to education in journalism and media studies and
support mechanisms as state subsidies. It is however with care that one
should generalise over measures to be taken to enhance the situation of
diasporic communities’ media. The communities vary both in size and social
composition as well as in regard to patterns of maintaining one’s own culture
in Finnish society and problems met with in processes of integration in e.g.
education and the labour market. The situation of diasporic minorities’ media
in Finland clearly calls for more research, which would be sensitive to the
different needs perceived by the different communities. Research on
minorities and media has in Finland to this date mostly been concerned with
the representations of immigrant or ethnic minorities in Finnish majority
media. The perspectives on minorities and media should be broadened to
include also minorities’ own media use and production.
26
27
List
In this mapping are listed periodicals, radio and TV-programmes and Internetpages. The main categories are by ethnic group and / or language and / or
“geographic origin”, depending on, for example, the definitions of target group
represented in the medium. The subcategories are ‘Print media’, ‘Radio and
TV’ and ‘Internet’. The main emphasis is on the 1990s, but when we have
obtained information on media during the post-WWII period, it has been
included.
African
Print media
The Drum
Helsinki: Africa Centre Finland
-First (only) issue in January 2000
Finn-African. The Magazine for Africans in Finland
Turku: The Finn-African r.y.
-One issue in 1992, followed by Scandi-B
Scandi-B.
Turku: Nine-Steady-One Mediaworks.
-Six issues in 1993-1995
Internet
Africa Centre Finland
http://www.africa-centre.org
-In English
-With the internet-edition of the periodical The Drum
(http://www.crosswinds.net/~africacentre/the-drum.html)
Albanian
Print media
Bashkimi.
Turku:
-At least one issue in 2000
Epoka e re: revistë e pavarur.
Tampere: Berki, 2000-Unclear whether it is still published and how many issues published
Radio
28
Albanian ääni (Albania’s voice)
-In Lähiradio
Arabic
Print media
Huna wa Hunak
Radio
Ibn-Fadlanin ääni - Suomen arabiradio (Ibn-Fadlans voice – Finnish Arab
radio)
-In Lähiradio
Internet
Ibn-Fadlan arabikulttuuriyhdistys (Ibn-Fadlan Arabic cultural association)
http://www.ibn-fadlan.com
-In Arabic & Finnish
-Organization based in Helsinki
The Islamic Society of Finland
http://www.rabita.fi/index.html
-In Finnish and Arabic, English “coming soon”
-Includes the net-version of the Finnish-language periodical An-Nur,
published by the society
Bosnia-Hercegovinian
Print media
Behar. List Finsko-bosansko-hercegovačko društva.
Tampere / Mikkeli: Suomi-Bosnia-Hertsegovina –seura r.y. – Finskobosansko-hercegovačko društvo 1995-At least 16 issues by 2000
Bilten.
Helsinki: Islamski Kulturni Centar Bošnjaka u Finskoj – Suomen Bosnialainen
Islam Yhdyskunta.
-At least six issues by 1998
Chinese
Internet
Chinese Student and Scholar Association of Helsinki University
29
http://www.helsinki.fi/~jrj_cssa/
-Last modified 15.02.2001 (according to page)
Chinese Students and Scholars Association of Helsinki University of
Technology
http://www.tky.hut.fi/~cssa/
- Last updated: Aug. 26 2001 (according to page)
Estonian
Internet
Turu Kandi Eestlased ry - Turun Seudun Eestiläiset ry
http://turueestlased.virtualave.net/
-Estonians in the Turku area
-In Estonian and Finnish
Ethiopian
Radio
Radio Etiopia
-In Lähiradio
Indian
Internet
The Findians Web Complex
http://www.netppl.fi/~findians/
-With the net-publication Findian Briefings
Kurdish
Print media
Dengê Kurd
Vaasa: Vaasan läänin kurdien kulttuuriyhdistys, Helsinki: Koçer
-21 issues in 1993-2000
-After 2000 an Internet publication
Dlanpar
Helsinki: Kurdistan National Peace and Solidarity Committee
-In 1994-1997
-In Sorany
30
Kongre
Helsinki: KKAKNK
-At least one issue in 1995
Korsholms flykting-tidning
-One issue in 1994
-Swedish-language publication of Iranian refugees in Korsholm
municipality
Kurdish Review
-One issue in 1978 or 1979
Projekti
Helsinki: Iranin ja Irakin Työllistämisyhdistys ry.
-At least 35 issues
Radio
Radio Hiwa
Internet
Anwari Rashi Awla’s homepage
http://www.geocities.com/anwarfi/index.html
-Personal homepage of the author
Dengêkurd
http://www.kurdmedia.com/dengekurd/
Hasan Dohogu’s homepage
http://www.hut.fi/~hasand/
-Personal homepage
Kurdistan Democratic Party - KDP Finland Representation
http://medlem.tripodnet.nu/kdpfinland/
Meedia. Kurdish Resources, Study, Opinion, Kids, Links &…
http://www.geocities.com/kurdifi/
Mehname
-Internet periodical
National Liberation Front of Kurdistan (ERNK) Finland Bureau
http://www.megabaud.fi/~ernk/
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Finland Comitea
http://go.to/pukfin
31
Romany
Print media
Elämä ja valo – romaaniheimon lehti
Helsinki : Suomen vapaa evankelinen romaanilähetys 1965-In Finnish
Latšo Diives. Romaniväestön koulutusyksikön tiedotuslehti
Helsinki : Opetushallitus 1994-In Finnish
Romano Boodos. Suomen mustalaislehti
Helsinki: Mustalaislähetys 1971-In Finnish
Internet
The Advisory Board on Romany Affairs
http://www.vn.fi/stm/suomi/pao/ronk/rindex.htm
The Education Unit for the Romany Population
http://www.oph.fi/info/romanit/
Romano Missio
http://www.romanomissio.fi/
Russian
Print media
Kurjer Suomi
Helsinki: Aveline Finland 1999
-Finished
Novye Rubezi – New Horizons
Helsinki: Ostromedia 1999-Earlier as Rubez (Helsinki: Profidend 1999)
Pietarin kauppatie - Peter'burgskij torgovyj put' Finsko-rossijskaâ
informacionno-reklamnaâ gazeta
Helsinki: Pietarin kauppatie oy (earlier Idän kauppatie) 1993Rajalehti - Po obe storony
Virolahti: Kaakon lehtikustannus1993-, Kaakon rajapalvelukeskus oy 1997Spektr: finskaâ russko-âzycnaâ informacionnaâ gazeta
Helsinki : Kanneltieto, 1998-, Spektr Kustannus Oy 2001-
32
Vestnik
-Not published anymore
Radio
Radio Sputnik
-Commercial 24 h radio station heard in south-eastern Finland
Radio Gorizont
-In Lähiradio
Radio Valeriana
-In Lähiradio
Internet
Novye Rubezi – New Horizons
http://www.new.horizons.ru/
-Homepage of the magazine
Pietarin kauppatie
http://www.torgovyiput.com/finn.htm
-Homepage of the magazine
Radio Sputnik
http://www.radiosputnik.fi/
-Homepage of the radio station
Rajalehti
http://www.rajalehti.fi/
-Homepage of the publication
Spektr
http://www.kanneltieto.fi/spektr/
-Homepage of the paper
Somali
Print media
Golis.
Helsinki: Suomen Somaliland seura 1993Midnimo
Helsinki: Suomen Somaliliitto 1999Koor – Kamelinkello. Waa wargeys af-Soomaali iyo Finnish ah – Suomalainen
somalilehti.
Helsinki: Suomi-Somaliaseura 1995-
33
-Formerly (1987-1994) called Somalia tiedotuslehti
Soof
-1996-1998
-Poetry periodical (?)
Radio
Radio Sahan
-In Lähiradio
Warsan – Suomen somaliradio
-In Lähiradio
Internet
Dirie Abdirashid’s homepage
http://www.uwasa.fi/~f76941/
-Personal homepage
Suomi-Somaliaseura (Finland-Somalia association)
http://personal.inet.fi/yhdistys/suomi-somaliaseura/#tausta
-Mainly in Finnish
Somalilander.org
http://www.somalilander.org/finland.htm
-International page, Finnish page supposedly under construction
Tatar
Print media
Aq yul
Oulu-Helsinki: Sadri Hamid.
-63 issues in 1967-1977.
Beldereš
Helsinki: Suomen Turkkilaisten Yhdistys
-Published since 1948, still existing in 1979 (Halén 1996)
Šimāl očqonlarï
Kemi (Helsinki 1952 onwards): Hasan Hamidulla.
-Eight issues in 1945-1977.
Tavïš
Oulu: Sadri Hamid.
-Six issues in 1967.
34
Turkish
Print media
Haber Bülteni.
-Not published anymore
Türk Sözü. Finlandiya türk derneği dergisi.
Helsinki: Suomen Turkkilainen Yhdistys ry. – Finlandiya Türk Derneği
Vietnamese
Print media
Nguöi Viêt Turku. Turun vietnamilaiset. Vietnamilaispakolaisten tiedotuslehti
Turussa.
Nguöi Viêt Turku Tampere. Turun ja Tampereen vietnamilaiset.
Vietnamilaispakolaisten tiedotuslehti Turussa ja Tampereella.
Turku.
-At least three issues in 1991
-In Vietnamese and Finnish
Multiethnic, multilingual & varia
Print media
Kimpassa-tiedote
Turku: Monikulttuurinen tietoyhdistys ry. / Multicultural Information Association
-Newsletter for organisations, authorities and institutions to advertise
their activities and events in Turku
-Twelve (?) issues yearly
Monitori
Helsinki: Ministry of Labour
-The Ministry’s magazine on immigration affairs
MultiCulti
Turku: Monikulttuurinen tietoyhdistys ry. / Multicultural Information Association
Radio and TV
Basaari
-“Immigrants’ programme” in Finnish Broadcasting Company’s channel
1
-Homepage at http://www.yle.fi/tv1/basaari/
Lähiradio
35
-Community radio in Helsinki
Radio Moreeni
-Community / campus radio in Tampere
-Internet address: http://www.uta.fi/moreeni/
Radio Robin Hood
-Community radio in Turku
-Programmes include for example: French hour once a week, two
programmes, Zëri i Vendlinjes and Përshëndetje dhe urime, in
Albanian, Bulletin en Francais (News in French), Do I Ot, a Russian
language news and educational programme, Kaleidoskop, Russian
language satirical news programme, Film reviews in English, Euro
Quest (Radio Netherlands), Im Deutschen Ek (German corner), Arabic
programme and Vietnamese Children's programme.
-Internet address: http://www.radiorobinhood.fi/
Internet
Monitori
http://www.mol.fi/migration/monitori.html
-Ministry of Labour’s magazine’s on immigration affairs homepage
36
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